ZIMBABWE: Savé Valley Conservancy: The Buffalo Saga

[Tau Wilderness]

The screaming symphony of the Cicada's was temporarily subdued by the blast of a 300gr flat nosed solid striking a Buffalo with a full frontal impact at close range.

The Mopanie forest went quit and with that, the last breath of a Duggaboy was exhaled.

Hunting in the Savé is not easy, but rewarding.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

 

[Tau Wilderness]

Just like most hunters from Africa I have been dreaming of hunting a Buffalo for a very long time. As a 17-year-old I went on a Big 5 hunt as an apprentice. I did not carry a rifle or commit to the final stalks, however those 10 days I spent next to the Linyanti river in the Caprivi region of Namibia had me hooked.

I finished school studied Nature Conservation, hunted plains games regularly and as often as possible.

Life …..she happens. The next moment you wake up, 40 + years old and you still haven’t been on that buffalo hunt the 20-year-old you though would happen yearly.

Then my opportunity came without warning.

Me and Andre Scholtz (AKA:Skollie) have been shooting and XSSSA( Long range steel shooting competition in South Africa) teammates for a while. Even though he is much wiser,fitter and a little older than me we have become very good friends. Must be my good looks....

He told me he wanted to shoot a Buffalo and sold one of his XSSSA comp rifles and acquired a .375 H&H in its place for the occasion. In secret he was planning and inquiring from different operators on the availability, cost and circumstances he could hunt a Buffalo in at their farm, concession or Zoo(tongue in cheek removed).
Skollie like most of us wanted to shoot an Old Bull in an open area preferably 100’s of kilometers away from a bale of lusern and without an ear tag. Buffalo’s with names like Titan, Storm, Maestro and big hoss was also to be passed along to other hunters.

Not too full of rules, but a proper wild old Dugga boy in the wild.
Well, if he was making rules, he also wanted to hunt this Buffalo in his country of birth, Rhodesia or as it is now known Zimbabwe.
Every now and then he would tell me about a possible hunt, followed by excitement and then the let down of another hunt that was cancelled by the outfitters.

Skollie decided enough is enough and he went full bore and booked a hunt with Shangani River Safari’s. The PH Sean Grant came highly recommended by @Dewald which made everything much beter.

Oh and then he invited me to come along…..and take my gun. Who does this!!! I said yes, we got plane tickets, paid transport fee’s for rifles and then we applied for firearm export permits from South African Police service to Zim…..this was a issue. South Africans need to wait for an export permit for firearms which can take 3 months. We had 2 months and hoped for the best.

There was moments of worry as the hunting with a borrowed gun is not something Skollie wanted to do, me not having a gun would be fine, I have a knife for buffalo charges. 5 days before our flights was leaving we got our export permits.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

So the big day arrived we had a 03:00 collection by shuttle from Skollies home in Paarl for a 6 am departure from Cape Town International to OR Thambo. After a short layover we had a flight to Bulawayo from Johannesburg.

On arrival we had a “VIP meet and greet” arranged by Skollie to insure we could get past immigration and customs with rifles before our 14;00 cut off. We had a cutoff as it was still a 6.5 hr drive from Bulawayo to the hunting camp. If you want to go hunt in Zimbabwe include this service in your budget . The VIP meet and greet went as one can think if something is lubed with US$.

Whilst waiting outside, we spotted a very heavily loaded Toyota Hilux supercab charge in!!!

Ty jumps out and greets us. It is at this point that I realise between me and Skollie one of us will be seated in the rear of the Supercab. I also immediately focus on the provisions on the rear of the bakkie en realise that it is for the entire way to the concession and not just till we reach “the other car”. I have one of the vehicles at home and know I do not fit in the back for longe er than 15 minutes...

So as Skollie was paying for everything and I was going along as a "super sponger deluxe" I insisted that I will squeeze in the back and give his 1.94meter frame a front seat. You know I am a good friend….

We left the airport and Ty mentioned we needed to get diesel for the bakkie. Ok no problem… not in Zim. 1 hr later almost we found a service station that had stock.

For the next 6.5 hrs I experienced what I can only compare to childbirth, but much worse. I am sleekly built for a fat short guy. When Hero Sun at Toyotas designed the rear section of a Hilux supercab he never had a Boerseun in mind when he placed the rear suicide door release handle in place. It smacked me on the knee every 5 minutes. I was tired from the flying and getting up early and my bum was burning from the hard seat. Proper childbirth comparisons were made.
We got caught by the dark and the last 2 hrs to camp was on dark dangerous roads filled with cattle, donkeys and when we reached the Triangle / Chiredzi area cane trucks.

Ty soldiered on and got us to camp safely. She is a very tough lady that keeps the hunting camp, food and staff going whilst the boys go out hunting we would soon come to appreciate.

We arrived at a perfect setting to brand new safari chalets/ tents. Stunningly done and situated on the riverbanks. The dining area was gorgeous and the weather nice and warm. I all but forgave the Toyota Hilux engineer from Japan.

We had dinner and then we died in our double beds. Lions roaring in the distance was heard and then I joined in with my world renowned snoring.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

 

[Tau Wilderness]

Saturday morning, we woke up rested and excited for the hunt. We got on the hunting vehicle and started driving to the shooting range. The area just had 100 mm of rain and everything was alive. You could hear the Mopanies grow. I have never experienced this before the rate at which the grass and leaves was appearing seemed like something unnatural. The green variants in the leaves and bush were amazing. I have a verbal diarea problem, but I was left speechless for much of the first two days of the hunt as the natural beauty of the area was astounding.

We each fired a shot at a target to check if the rifles travelled well. It was confirmed that both .375’s was spot on.

Skollie en Rocky ( hunting dog supreme)

Baobabs with leaves was something new to me. Historically South African go to Zim during winter holidays when the bush is dry.

Signs of the 100mm rain two days before we arrived was visible everywhere

The bush became thick and overgrown overnight after the great rains

most of the concession borders was marked by dry rivers.

We had to clear roads daily that Elephant closed with their antics.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

The rest of the morning we drove around the concession looking for the herds of Buffalo that Sean had sent Skollie pictures and video’s of and all the elephants. We found signs of elephant dung and Buffalo dung, but no tracks. It was as if they heard the hunters had arrived and left for central Save valley!! In reality the rain had now opened up massive section of the inland parts of the Save as it now had pools of water and fresh grass en leaves.

The plan then changed a little to driving most of boundary roads until we would find spoor followed by the trackers and us following these spoors until we would catch up with the Dugga boys or bulls and have a look to see if it would be an Old Bull that would fit the criteria of a real trophy bull.

On that subject. I have never been one to measure horns and hunt for the biggest measuring trophy. I love animals with one horn, broken tips or that is very old. To me this is the correct animal to hunt. Hunting a bull in his sexual prime does not make sense, but the world and record books have most hunters hooked on finding that Bull or Ram with the big horns.

We do not tell the story of the hunt, we always start the story with the size of the horns. We even ask other hunters the size of the horns before we ask them about the hunting experience.

“I am not taking that animal the horns are to small” have been uttered by most of us at some stage.

We chase the trophy not the journey or the experience.

The reality is that old male animals that do not breed anymore is typically the owners of worn horns and tusks. Not in all species but definitely Buffalo. HOWEVER, horns size is what drives a huge part of our industry so let it be. It is very important to the financial viability of trophy hunting. So I respect it and welcome it.

In Zimbabwe and when hunting with Sean old animals is the main focus.

Skollie and I did lots of research (YouTube is research isn’t it?) about age and horn development in Buffalo. Buffalo with massive 42” horns, soft bosses and tips that sits high above the head has possibly not reached sexual maturity or is still spreading their gene’s. As buffalo gets older their horns wear as they fight trees en scrubs to get ready for territorial fights. They mud bath and horn the clay to secrete their scent and cover themselves with mud to remove ecto parasites. All this wears the horns down and the horns develop/grow/ move lower compared to the ears and the top of the Buffalo's’ head as animal get older. Like the ears on a human being.

So keep all this in mind and my self rightous mentallity leading up to this hunt….on the afternoon of day one driving around looking for tracks we drive past a bull of 42” plus horns , It is like trying not to stare at a very pretty gun in the Gunshop when your wife is next to you and you only popped in for some primers.

Murphy, ethics, self pride and glory all arrived at the front door of our self-control. Well at mine at least. You know looking a gifted horse in the mouth and so on. I wanted to tap on the roof jump of and get Skollie on the sticks to get a shot of. I lost my list of rules very quickly.... I am only flesh and bone.

This is where Sean made his first move on this hunt that was a sign that he is my kind in person, or at least the kind I strive to be.

He simply drove on.

He didn’t stop and glance with his bino’s or mark the spot. He just kept driving. I assumed the Bull had soft bosses or it was a resident bull that was named after some ex-politician. About 1.5km’s later we stopped. Sean declared we had gone far enough away from the bull to not make this a diesel stalk and we have given the animal an opportunity to move away or not. We kitted up and started our walk back thru the bush and not on the road.
As soon as we started to walk and stalk the cover that the newly sprouted Mopanie leaves create was serious. Anything further than 50 meters away was not clearly visible and open shots would be almost impossible.

However, “we knew where this 42” was so walking across the ridge finding it and shooting it on the shoulder would be easy.........NOT so, 6.7km later and almost 3 hrs on foot we found the herd at 18;02. We could see 3 black figures no more than 20 meter in front of us, but there was no way at seeing which was a 42” bull and which was a cow. We watched them for about 20 minutes, but they just kept grazing. With ZERO wind we could hear them grunt and eat. Then suddenly a soft breeze rolled over our necks towards the herd of Buffalo. The bush erupted and away stormed 6 Buffalo!!! Immediately we realised that this hunt was not just about finding tracks, walking till we found the buffalo and then stalking them, but also getting an opening in the bush to view and then shoot the Buffalo.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

Out on our first stalk.The veld was still a little wet.

The Mopanie shoots was and intense green and the smell was gorgeous.

The Man himself ...Skollie.

At this moment I could not believe that I gave up this life for a "normal" job.

Hunters also do selfies. I had to take a picture of us looking at the herd of Buffalo at 20 meters with no clue what we had infront of us.

Baobab in full bloom. I am from the Cape and Namibia, I have never experienced the Lowveld after rain it is something spectacular!!!

 

[Sideshow]

Enjoying your writing style looking forward to more!

 

[Tau Wilderness]

We had an amazing supper of Buffalo T-Bones that night and going to bed early was the plan… but then we drove to the neighbouring poperty (Hammond Ranch) as they had a TV and we watched the Springboks beat the English properly. Then we went home and passed out.

Early Sunday morning we went out looking for fresh tracks. The Chrismas beatles/ Cicada’s was out in full force. The intensity of their screaming was Crazy and the humidity very high.

Most rivers in the conservancy had by now run off so we could cross them by vehicle. We worked hard and searched every koppie(Ghoma), valley, river and corner of the concession…the buffalo and elephant all disappeared. The rain had filled all the pools, mud hallows and pan’s in the interior of the Save valley so the animals could now graze and browse areas that was too far from drinking water for a long time.

We had no stalks for the day and no spoor of larger Dugga boy spoor. The only spoor or sightings we had was the resident herds of cows and calves with a dominant bull in the area. But hey we had 4 more days…

Rivers coming down.

Climbing koppies and having a scan for anything in the distance.

The green at this stage is almost luminous and the canopy cover blocks us from seeing anything. How big animals like Buffalo and elephant can just vanish is very impressive.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

Monday is on us and the new week brings new promise, also we didn’t want to shoot the Buffalo on a Sunday or day one. This is maybe where I must admit to a joke, I made on the Friday to Skollie on the drive from Bulawayo to Save. In a moment of pain after 4 hrs in the back of a Hilux supercab I said “Skollie shoot the buffalo Wednesday afternoon at 16;00 please so that we can have a week full of hunting”.

Anyway, we are out Monday morning early looking for spoor, driving boundary roads however nothing like in nothing appears. As the routine now start at 11:00 it is back to camp as the heat or rather humidity makes it very hot en sticky. At 15:00 we go out again and hunt till dark which is around 18;30. Because we are on private land and not a National park we can start earlier and finish later with hunting.

After lunch I get the brainwave to leave my old boots at camp and take the new boots out for their christening hunt…. At 17;00 Sean stops at a river and says well lets walk this all the way to camp and see if we can find any Buffalo. We get of the vehicle and the walk and scenery is amazing. Leopard, Buffalo and Lion spoor on the west sand is great to read and learn from the trackers….after about 100meters I realise my new boots is going to kill my heals. Instead of stopping and telling Sean and Skollie about my problem I keep quit as I thought the walk would be 20- 30 minutes.

1,5 hours later we arrive at camp after a proper sand walk. My new boots did well my heals not so much. Both my heals are a bloody mess, blistered and raw. I am furious wth myself. I am a qualified hiking guide, FGASA field guide and I did day walks as a guide for SANparks, yet as a fat,bold ,41 year old I get the idea to take new boots hunting whilst I have slipper like comfortable, worn in hunting boots with me. Stupid!!!

Never take new boots on a hunt!!!!!!

I could at least provide the camp with a good laugh by pouring spirits on my wounds.

Skollie ready to find a Duggaboy .

The rivers drained very quickly and we could walk most of the way in the river.

The river walk was a visual feast

When the PH swaps to Crocs... he is either very tough or very brave.

The idiot and his new boots....

 

[Tau Wilderness]

We arrived at camp as it got dark and my blister popped and started bleeding...

The aftermath created for good entertainment.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

It was now Tuesday morning. We started at 05:00 now as the Buffalo just kept on disappearing on us. We worked hard and searched everywhere on the conservancy.

What must be understood is that there is no fences on the Southern boundary of the Save. The rivers determine which area stops were or gravel roads. So, animals walk in and out of your area of hunting daily, well hourly. So you might start to follow a spoor and 2 hrs later it crosses a simple jeep track path and then he is outside your concession. This is what appeals to me about the hunting in Zimbabwe and theses huge concession with multiple areas an hunting outfitters. The population is managed by humans, however the animals can move around as they please making it a very hard fair hunt.

Well the Buffalo decided to move away, far , far away like the land where Shrek lives.

We found tracks at 09;30 and it looked like a group of 5 animals with 2 big spoor among the tracks. We got within 30 meters of the herd, however before we could get a clear view at the animals the wind turned on us and the ran away. This happened multiple times on this hunt where the wind would just slighty turn and you could feel it on the back of your neck.

You could take a shot......if you really want to have an empty bank account and plenty of trouble.

Fresh spoor.

My beloved gun and belt setup

shadows in the bush.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

Wednesday came… 2 days of hunting left. The mood wasn’t as chearfull at times.

I have mentioned the bush before, but now the leaves of the Mopanies had blocked all vision. We started at 05:30 but the morning session provided no sign of Buffalo. We looked everywhere and Sean never stopped working. We had lunch and our afternoon siesta and started at 15:00 again.

Some pictures of the morning session

Just after 16:00 we found fresh spoor of about 6 Buffalo. We also found very fresh dung. It was nice and hot with zero wind. We started tracking the herd and not very long into the stalk we found the herd grazing, unfortunately for the umpteenth time this hunt with these windless days the breeze just slightly pushes and you feel it on the back of your neck. This is followed by the crashing sound of Buffalo getting wind of us and running away.

Fresh dung

The moment we bumped the first herd we followed.

You can see how thich the brush was at stages. getting on your hand and knees to get closer was normal.

I do not know how unfit people can hunt Buffalo.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

We where despondent and turned back to the vehicle, however not 100meters into our hike back to the bakkie we heard Buffalo grunting from another area. We investigated and found that it was another herd of Dugga boys. We moved slowly and got on their spoor.

Stonehendge in the Save

We had good tracks to follow, however the buffalo moved quickly and crossed a couple of dry rivers and smaller streams.

When you are walking like this in a group of 5 totally quit and focused on hearing, smelling and finding Buffalo time fly's before we knew it it was 18:05. The trackers was doing an amazing job of staying on the tracks.

If you have hunted Buffalo or in my case plenty of Eland in the bush these moments become common place. Tired sweaty and wondering why you do this. Days of walking and searching. You become despondent, but when you hopefully succeed these moments are forgotten.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

I looked at my watch and took this picture thinking that we had run out of day light.

These buffalo had been hunted or poached very hard in the past and had become extremely skittish. They would graze into the wind turn around on their tracks and start grazing upwind again. so at times one will start second guessing the trackers.

Nicolas has been with Sean for 27 years and not once did Sean question him, what did happen often is Sean would take a line from tracks we had to the next area that looked like a route the buffalo would take. And he was correct many times, however he said Nicolas needed to follow the track the entire time and that is how they worked. The trust and efficiency was amazing. Whenever I tough "no way are you still on the same tracks" Nicolas would show me the markings of the same spoor we started following 2 hrs earlier.

Below is a screenshot of the stalk we did on this herd.

We heard lions in the distance as it was getting darker. Nicolas and Trust the other tracker was on our right following the spoor when I heard Buffalo to our left ( before you think I am great at hearing.... Sean and Nicolas has been hunting big game for 27 years so their hearing is not great and Skollie was in the army so his hearing is also not great).

I told Sean and he moved towards an opening where the sound was coming from, the trackers stayed on the spoor.

As we entered the clearing we could see Buffalo about 50 meters away. I just froze and left Sean and Skollie to try and get closer without a 3rd person creating more noise and movement.

The bush air was super still, not a breath of wind.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

The following pictures was all taken with limited light as you know these new smartphones make it look much lighter than it really was.

The buffalo was blocked by some trees on my angle.

Skollie and Sean making their way to the anthill

Here you can see them in relation to how close they got to the herd.

Skollie taking the shot of Sean's shoulder to stay as low as possible.

The screaming symphony of the Cicada's was temporarily subdued by the blast of a 300gr bullet striking a Buffalo with a full frontal impact at close range.

Skollie in his perfect shooting position

The smile that said it all

Sean immediately said it was a perfect shot frontal heart shot. We gave the Bull about 2 minutes but he did not go down. At this stage it was almost dark. Sean decided that he wanted to move in on the Bull and rather take it down before we risked losing it in the dark.

We got up and walked up to the wounded bull in a fire line of three. at about 15meters we stopped and the bull turned towards us with his head hanging low, blood running out of his noise. He was dead on his feet. It was dark .....

Skollie asked me from day one to backup and shoot if I ever thought the his Buffalo might get away or if we where in danger. I asked him 100 times if he was OK with me shooting and more than once he said yes....

At this stage I was not planning on shooting at his dead Buffalo with his low hanging head that was for some reason still standing.

The Buffalo raised his head and in a millisecond with blood dripping from his nostrils. I instinctively shot, Skollie did the same and he was struck by 2 x 300gr .375 Solids below the chin smashing his next and spine junction.

He dropped in his tracks.

Me and Skollie without talking had at the exact moment felt that the Buffalo looked like he wanted to charge us and fired simultaneously.

The Mopanie forest went quit and with that, the last breath of a Duggaboy was exhaled.

Hunting is the Savé is not easy, but rewarding.

The smile of a Man that is now a Buffalo hunter.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

Nicholas Dlamini, Pro tracker.

Sean checking to see if Buff is safe to approach.

The Moment. Skollie with his Buffalo shot in his country of birth. It was a beautiful moment.

The light was bad but we wanted to get some pictures before it was pitch black .

Myself and Skollie with his Buffalo. And yes we looked wet and sweaty as we had just walked 7,72 km's to get to the herd. The distances they move it ridiculous. The humidity was high and the weather warm.

And my beloved Ruger Alaskan .375 Ruger...and now a gun that has shot a Buffalo ++>:

 

[Tau Wilderness]

Unfortunately the Buffalo was too far from a road in thick bush so we had to leave it there for the night.

It was a good night around the fire.

We returned early morning to take better pictures and to skin the Buffalo and carry it out in quarters.

A picture of Skollie taking a picture .

And some of Skollies pictures he took with his camera.

Skollie , Sean Nicholas and Trust.

 

[Tau Wilderness]

As mentioned I studied Nature conservation and I am interested in the physiologigy of wild animals, so I helped the skinners slaughter the Buffalo. It was my first time slaughtering a Buffalo and from the start I could see that a Big Buff bull is built tough. Everything is extra thick and tough. My knife did most of the skinning which was a proud moment

Seeing Trust hitting the ribs with an axe to cut the animal in sections was ridiculous. The ribs create armor overlapping around the internal organs. Every Buffalo hunter should see the thickness of the skin around the neck and chest and the layers of fat and membrane that protects the internal organs from shock and impact when these bulls fight or get attacked by lion.

Skollie showing how thick the skin is. Around the neck and chest it is even thicker.

We found the route of Skollies first shot. It had struck the top of the heart and both arteries was severed. How the Buffalo still lived after this shot is beyond me!!

The heart was hanging loose in the pericardium (sack around heart).

Skinning was interupted by 1000000million flies and blowflies.

We found my 300gr solid on the inside of the Pelvis. It had struck the lower neck vertebrae and then entered the spine and smashed another 4 vertebrae. Passed thru the lungs, stomach and ended up being lodged in the pelvic bone!!!